Faith & Knowledge

Have you heard the adage

"The person with an experience is NEVER at the mercy of the person with an argument?"

Once you have had personal encounter or spiritual experience with the living Christ, transforming your life inside out, it is highly unlikely that you would 'lose faith' just because some archeologists digged out a long, lost 'gospel'.

That is so true. Perhaps, that explains why Christians are taught to focus on personal testimonies, stories and experiences? And avoid discussions about facts, history and informed arguments.

Because nobody can dispute YOUR personal experiences. Right?

But is that alone is enuff?

Sure, people can't dispute visions, dreams and other supernatural encounters you have.

But they can surely reinterpret it the way they like.

Like a colleague of mine who went to City Harvest and was powerfully touched. He didn't dispute it. He said, "I havent felt this for a long time"

I asked when was the last time you felt this?

"During Buddhist meditations".

Er... given some hindsight, I see that was indeed a turning point in his life. He had a genuine personal encounter with Christ, the way the truth the life.

But is that alone enuff? Maybe not, there was no visible difference in lifestyle etc

It was only later that his Christian wife helped him to put that experience in the light of truth. He began to study scripture, fellowship and serve in CG and a noticeable change in the way he works and lives.

Personal experience with God and knowledge of the truth are like Coffee and Coffeemate. You can't have one without the other.

In the Maclaurin blog, Udo Middelmann was quoted for saying “faith is not a substitute for knowledge, but the response to it.”

I know, it is much more comfortable and less stressful to have 'faith' as an invincible power that is immune to the vagaries of fact, science, reason, history.

No matter wat the historian or scientist says, our faith is blissfully untouched.

But u know wat, that is exactly what Da Vinci Code says about 'faith'!

“Every faith in the world is based on fabrication,” says Langdon. “That is the definition of faith—acceptance of that which we imagine to be true, that which we cannot prove” (p. 341, italics in original).

That may be true of some faiths that is purely otherworldly, lost touch with reality.

But is that what biblical faith is all about? That may be privately fascinating, but as far as the public arena is concerned, mildly entertaining and hardly relevant.

A faith that is blind to knowledge and truth had left the moral high ground and fallen right into the idea of 'faith' Professor Teabing described here:

“[T]he clergy in Rome are blessed with potent faith, and because of this, their beliefs can weather any storm, including documents that contradict everything they hold dear. But what about the rest of the world? What about those who are not blessed with absolute certainty? What about those who look at the cruelty in the world and say, where is God today? ... What happens to those people... if persuasive scientific evidences comes out that the Church’s version of the Christ story is inaccurate, and that the greatest story ever told is, in fact, the greatest story ever sold.”

Of course, I'm not trying to be panicky here. (though a survey shows about 10% surveyed in US actually take DVC seriously)

The church has triumphed over the challenge of Gnosticism before, and the church will finally triumph again.

No worries. But the battle will be won not by falling back on private experiences or encounters - no matter how spectacular and cherished.

We need to do what Rev Edmund Chan of Covenant EFC (whom I met at the wedding on Sat), IChing of RZIM and Dave Geisler, whom I met online last week, have been doing in Singapore -

Equip people to be ambassadors for Christ who are not only informed but could tell stories, not only won over by Christ but also winsome, loving and respectful yet possess reasoned convictions, truthful AND relational.

Contrasting his more scholarly dad, Dave Geisler has really been helpful in training Christians to do practical, naturally conversational outreach in Asian context after the movi.

Echoing this ecommentary by Soo Inn - "Please dont' ban the movie! Bring it on..."